2/25 FAL Weekly Digest

Welcome to the FAL Weekly Digest, a source for this week’s biggest news articles and crypto market updates.

Here is what you need to know:

War in Europe Spooks Markets

Global financial markets were shaken this week as Russia launched a military assault on the Ukraine. Several financial sectors were negatively affected by the build up of tensions leading up to the invasion on Thursday morning including several major equity indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. Market sentiment was generally low as investors feared that the conflict would be exacerbated if the European Union and the United States were to become more directly involved, but news of the Western nation’s increased sanctions and lack of direct involvement in the war have calmed financial markets for the time being.

The situation in the Ukraine grows dire as Russian troops advance on the capital city of Kyiv. The state of emergency has prompted Ukraine’s central bank to temporarily suspend the nation’s currency market and limit cash withdrawals from ATMs and banks. Ukrainians may be looking for alternative means of accessing and transporting their assets due to a notable rise in cryptocurrency transactions on Ukrainian based exchange “Kuna”. According to analytics platform CoinGecko, the Kuna exchange saw a significant spike in trading volume on the day of the invasion, tripling from average volume readings.

Market Update - BTC

The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization is about $1.76 trillion, a -3.3% decrease from last week’s valuation of $1.82 trillion. At the time of publication, Bitcoin ($BTC) is valued at $39,113 per bitcoin with a market capitalization of $743 billion making up 42.2% of the overall market.

Bitcoin has suffered a volatile week of price action along with several other major financial sectors as part of a greater reaction to the build up of tensions in Eastern Europe. BTC fell to an extreme low of $34,322 on Thursday as war began to break out, but quickly bounced along with several other markets to recover. It currently sits just under the $40k level that it lost on February 17th, which it now tests for the 4th time this week from the underside. For a more in-depth technical analysis, please see our report found here.

OpenSea Exploiter Steals $1.7M

A planned upgrade to the OpenSea non-fungible token (NFT) trading platform has gone awry as a malicious actor was able to deploy a phishing scheme tricking high end NFT owners into giving their assets away. Atleast 17 users of the platform had their NFTs stolen, which equated to a value of about $1.7 million in $ETH. Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea, was quick to respond on Twitter Saturday regarding the issue.

The proposed upgrade would implement a new smart contract that would host the NFTs on the platform, bringing new features such as bulk NFT listings, more descriptive signatures, and properly assuring the expiration of inactive listings. While users were asked to migrate their listings to the new smart contract, the bad actor was able to create a fake email that was sent to various owners who unknowingly signed transactions sending their NFTs to the exploiter.

The important takeaway from this unfortunate situation is to remain ever vigilant in protecting your account security for any online platform. Always avoid clicking on any emails or links in emails that you were not expecting to receive as they could be phishing schemes as seen above. Consider changing your passwords for important accounts on a more frequent basis, and avoid using the same password for all your accounts. Security should be one of your top priorities when navigating the cryptocurrency space and protecting your valuable digital assets.

SafeMoon Scam Brings Lawsuit to Celebs

A recent class-action lawsuit has been filed against multiple celebrities who have been known to “misleadingly promote and sell the digital asset associated with SafeMoon” ($SAFE) cryptocurrency to unsuspecting investors. The lawsuit claims that the SafeMoon LLC, founder and CEO Braden John Karony, and other persons associated with the business were “marketing the token while failing to disclose their control over both the company and a significant amount of SafeMoon digital assets available for public trading.”

Among the many defendants listed in the 60-page lawsuit are Jake Paul, Nick Carter, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty, and the YouTuber Ben Phillips who all participated in the “pump and dump” of the SafeMoon token by endorsing and using “misleading promotions” to encourage unknowing people to invest while the founders slowly sold their holdings.

Scams as big as the SafeMoon scheme serve as a lesson for all would-be investors in cryptocurrency or in any investment circle - do your own research. If the promised gains and rewards from an unregulated and unlicensed product are too good to be true, they probably are. For more information on the case be sure to read our full article found here.

El Salvador Sees Growth Post BTC Adoption

El Salvador’s bet on Bitcoin attracting foreign investment and other economic benefits to the nation could be starting to pan out. According to Salvadoran Tourism Minister Morena Valdez, tourism has increased 30% since the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021. The study has also shown a significant shift in where these tourists are coming from, where as many as 60% of the tourists are coming from the United States compared to previous studies where visitors were more likely to come from neighboring Central American nations.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has also recently touted the economic growth of the nation, stating that El Salvador’s GDP grew 10.3% in 2021 and its exports grew 13% in January 2022 compared to January 2021. While not stated outright, the president did hint to the possibility that the adoption of Bitcoin could have provided the stimulus needed for the positive change in economic activity. For more information on the Central American nation’s plans to court the crypto community, please see our article found here.

Thanks for reading! For more information regarding the cryptocurrency space, please visit us at https://www.cryptofal.com/.